TPWD Set to Graduate 41 New Game Wardens

AUSTIN – After seven months of training in everything from water rescue and state-federal law to alligator handling, the 41 cadets of the 55th Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Game Warden class will close one chapter of their lives and start a new one with their graduation Tuesday as state game wardens.

The ceremonies, open to the public, will be at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the E1 auditorium at the Capitol in Austin.

The new game wardens will then report for duty at stations spanning the state from East Texas to El Paso. Game wardens’ duties include responding to natural disasters and conducting public outreach on a variety of topics in addition to enforcing hunting and fishing laws and water safety regulations.

“Basically, game wardens are the primary law enforcement off the pavement in Texas,” said Major Danny Shaw, director of training at the academy. “We do a lot more for the people of Texas than enforcing game and fish laws.”

This class of cadets is the second to be trained in the new Texas Game Warden Training Center in rural Hamilton County. Located on a 220-acre tract donated by the Police Assistance League of Texas, the $20 million training center project has so far seen completion of an administration building, education hall-armory, dining hall and fitness center. The second phase will include a firing range, a water rescue facility, emergency vehicle operations course, refitting of instructor quarters and cadet cabins and helicopter landing pad

These 41 cadets will bring to 532 the number of men and women who are carrying on a tradition of service to Texas that game wardens started in 1895.